Top Chef Week 5 Recap: Over and done

Chilam Balam's Chuy Valencia was eliminated from Top Chef this week, the second Chicago chef to go in as many weeks. Photo from Bravo TV.

Chilam Balam's Chuy Valencia was eliminated from Top Chef this week, the second Chicago chef to go in as many weeks. Photo from Bravo TV.

Kevin PangTribune reporter

Probability, you fickle law. Here we are to think more Chicago chefs competing means a greater chance a Chicagoan would be crowned Top Chef, and we forget its inverse, that Chicagoans also have a greater chance of being eliminated.

Four weeks ago, the show premiered with such promise. Cooking was one field of competition where the Second City didn’t have an inferiority complex. Sure, it’s just a television show, but six-for-six Chicagoans advancing into the finalists round of 16? Sign us up for the pep squad.

But last week, we saw Moto’s Richie Farina get the Padma heave-ho, really, for drawing the short straw. He happened to be the least best chef in the episode. Now this week, it was Chilam Balam’s Chuy Valencia, the second Chicago chef in as many weeks to be eliminated. Valencia had spent the last two episodes in the winner’s circle, which tells us winning streaks aren’t sustainable and forward momentum doesn’t exist on this show; one false move and you’re a television footnote.

Nevermind Valencia’s smoked trout with rice was among the favorites in this week’s quickfire challenge, in which chefs cooked with non-perishable canned goods and powdered drinks on the side of a road. It was when the group arrived at a progressive dinner party in a posh suburb that Valencia and Co. felt out-of-place. (Was this a Bravo cross-promotion with the Real Housewives of Dallas?)

Teams were split into three groups for the elimination challenge: appetizers, entrees and desserts. Each contestant would be judged for their own dish, not a group effort like previous weeks.

For a while, it looked like Moto’s Chris Jones was in danger. He took roasted chicken, sweet corn, and wrapped in collard green to resemble a cigar. Cumin was made to look like ash. He took inspiration when he noticed the host's cigar collection. (For the record: this is a dish straight from the Moto repertoire, so the idea is not completely original.) Judge Gail Simmons said the last thing any woman in a cocktail dress wanted was a "giant greasy cigar." Guest judge John Besh called it a "gimmick," and head judge Tom Colicchio threw in the obligatory "close but no cigar" crack.

In the end, Valencia’s sockeye salmon with goat-cheese stuffing, a take on lox-and-cream cheese, did him in. Colicchio seemed positively offended that Valencia insisted the salmon be overdone for the goat cheese to melt to its desired effect. Said Besh: "In the end, it was the overcooked salmon in a dish that wasn’t thought through that sent Chuy home."

Eleven episodes remain. Two Chicagoans gone, four left. The odds still look good.